Sounds good, I don't think the "screen is up" is going to be enough. Maybe use that to turn on a relay to provide the full 12v+?

I didn't know there was a signal for that, my screen stays on non-stop when the car is on. Where can I find that wire so I rewire mine?

Llama is free, and uses a lot of plug in's that work for tasker.

 

From the navscreen replacement info thread:

The M95 harness is circled here:

 

Well, I've pre-ordered the tablet. I'll be documenting the process as I go.

 

Subscribed

 

Sweet deal. I may jump on the one I linked on eBay solely for the reason of built in GPS. Plus it's chinese, so it should be a cinch to root. But I follow your footsteps since I know amazon will build a better product.

 

Yeah, the chinese no-name units just have really spotty quality. I've been tempted by them too, but the fire hd 6 combined with a good existing headunit looks like it'll work well for me.

I'd like to think of a good way to take advantage of the factory nav control space, I may just have to take a heat gun to some thin ABS trim plastic and curve it to fit to make a clean replacement that isn't dead buttons, but that's still wasted space.

 

True, I had an android double din that worked great for awhile, then it suddenly decided to stop outputting rear speakers. But still kinda funky, I think if the chinese started to strip away features no one used then it would probably work better.

Anyway, I've been thinking that too, the biggest issue for me is the thump stick portion (how it curves in the end). If it was a rectangle, we'd be okay. I would probably put digital gauges there or something, but the curved part....I just don't know.

 

Hey Wrathernaut, have you looked into raspberry pi? I've been recently eyeing this, and just found out they added a new model called the B+ which has an additional USB port.

I may go this route, as it'll allow more functionality. Though a tablet would be a lot easier

 

I'm currently searching for a tablet to mount in the center console storage box. Needs to be 170-177mm long tops. Having some troubles finding one. Any ideas? I was thinking a Sony Z ultra but it's a phone and quite expensive.

 

A Raspberry Pi setup seems a interesting way to go to replace the factory headunit (and may be what I go with to update my wife's headunit, if they add bluetooth streaming/calls): http://engineering-diy.blogspot.com/...4-updates.html

But it's still almost double the price of the Fire HD6.

 

Wow. So the HD6 arrived today. This thing is as close to the factory navigation screen's height and width as you could ever dream:





I'm about to disassemble the nav housing to place it inside so I can cut the holes for a charger.

 

In-progress update:

It's a perfectly snug fit with the felt running around the edges. It won't come out without serious effort.


Close-up of the power button and USB charging port. The position of the screw is plenty behind the HD6, but in the picture it looks like it interferes. It doesn't.


Marking off the part of the frame that will have to be removed for power/USB access:


A few minutes with the dremel later:



And basic test-fit. It's so close to fitting through the opening for the screen that I'm tempted to enlarge the hole so it can be removed, but I won't.




It sits recessed from the front edge about a quarter inch when you push it against the screws that protrude into the metal navscreen housing, so I'm going to place a spacer behind the HD6 so that it goes as close to flush with the opening as possible. I need to go pick get my 90 degree micro USB plug to make sure it'll fit between the screen and the plastic nav screen housing.

 

Final update for today.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that somebody figures out how to root this and get tasker going on it, or at least the google app store. Sideloading is tedious, even with AirDroid. I'm using AutomateIt to change the screen timeout from "Never" and turn on wifi when plugged in, to "15 Seconds" and no wifi when no power. This should get the tablet through at least a day or two of sleeping. I've drilled a hole into the side of the plastic frame that I can poke a tool through to power on/off the tablet manually, but it's not a perfect solution. I suppose I could hook the tablet up to constant power and use a connection to the stereo via bluetooth to switch the screen timeout. I imagine the car's battery would keep the tablet powered in that mode almost indefinitely.

I need to get the GPS sharing app so that navigation will actually track my movement installed on both devices now. Minor edit: TetherGPS Lite worked great, but it's limited, so I'll be likely be buying the full version so it will work for more than a few minutes at a time. I just need to confirm it works when the phone is the wifi hotspot that TetherGPS is working through.

Here's the tablet in the final position:

 

Very nice! I actually did the tablet install on my wife's IS300 the other day. I have no idea why I didn't think about using felt....


Anyway, on her car, the Galaxy tab 4 sat so close to the double din, I took a regular usb charger, hacked all the plastic/rubber off of it, and bent it to fit. So you may want to try that route.

Also look into llama as an alternative to tasker. Free and works just as well.

One other thing, have you thought about using bluetotth GPS? It's an app that allows you to connect to a BT GPS receiver

It's a bit expensive, but might be easier to than your phone everytime.


I wonder if it supports OTG? If that's the case you could use YAH (you are here) app with a USB GPS receiver, but you would be stuck on how to charge and OTG all at once.

 

I'll look into llama, I don't see it on the amazon app store though.

Yeah, I considered an external bluetooth GPS, however, I'm not sure if it will work or not. The bluetooth profiles that the Fire HD supports are limited to A2DP, AVRCP, SPP and one other, so I'm not sure if the external bluetooth unit would be supported. I tried using an app that emulated a bluetooth receiver (ExtGPS) on my phone and it wouldn't work. TetherGPS relies on an app on both sides communicating over wifi, so the limited bluetooth profiles is not an issue.

With tasker on my phone, I believe I can automate starting/stopping TetherGPS.

I left the FireHD unplugged and in sleep mode overnight (~8-10hrs) and the reported battery didn't budge from 100%. However, I don't know if there's room "above" 100% so the battery can fluctuate a bit to keep healthy without owners freaking out that it's only charging to 95% half the time.

The tablet may also be closing Waze if it sleeps with Waze running (which is actually a very good thing). Pandora auto-stops if it's playing via bluetooth and the bluetooth connection is closed. I think I've got to put together a simple testbench so I can do some tests without fully reassembling it.